Analog Devices Inc is close to an all-stock agreement to acquire Maxim Integrated Products Inc, people familiar with the matter said.
The semiconductor companies are talking about a deal that values San Jose, California-based Maxim at more than its current market capitalization of roughly US$17 billion.
Norwood, Massachusetts-based Analog has a market value of US$46 billion and also has a large office in the San Jose area.
The deal could be announced as early as Monday, although discussions could still fall apart, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private negotiations.
Representatives for Analog Devices and Maxim declined to comment on the deal, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Acquisitions are starting to return after a lull of several months caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This comes on the heels of Uber Inc announcing a US$2.65 billion deal for Postmates Inc, Allstate Corp agreeing to a record US$4 billion takeover of National General Holdings Corp and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc spending roughly the same amount on a gas pipeline and storage assets.
Some chip deals have either been delayed or abandoned if they require approval in China, the world’s largest market for semiconductors. The process has been complicated by the ongoing trade dispute between the US and China.
Analog Devices is currently less than half the size of market leader Texas Instruments Inc by revenue. While Maxim would not allow it to close the gap totally, it would broaden the range of products in its analog portfolio, something that Texas Instruments has touted as helping to cement its dominance.
All three companies specialize in analog and embedded computing components. Once a sleepy backwater of the industry, this segment has enjoyed a resurgence as the list of uses and customers has grown in the past few years.
Analog chips convert real-world things like sound and pressure into electronic signals, and the rush to add automation to factory equipment and buildings and to move vehicles toward a world where they would not need human drivers has stirred new demand.
It is also a profitable area of the chip industry. Analog Devices and Maxim have gross margins in the region of 65 percent.
Since 2015, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index has tripled in value. The benchmark index now has a market capitalization of more than US$1.5 trillion.
Over that same period, chip companies have been increasingly consolidating to help them lower costs and serve customers that have done the same. Their earnings have become more predictable and their cash generation has provided them with war chests and the ability to carry debt they could not have sustained in the past.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last